Monday, February 28, 2005

As I sit here, my eyeballs are being squeezed like bubble bath balls, and if it weren't for a coma-strength medication pulsating through me I'd have pulled them from their shrinking sockets twenty minutes ago. Allergies. What I get for staying indoors as a child. (Charles in Charge and the A-Team, amongst others, get the credit for that...) Of course, my indoorsmanship is most likely the lamentable cause of my ghastly pallor and an associated revulsion for sunlight as well. I should just give up now and get vampiric teeth surgically installed. Then I could walk around eerily cooing, "Blah, I want to suck your blood" or for the kids, "One vampire victim! *Muffled scream* Ha-ha-ha! Two vampire victims! Ha-ha-ha! *Choking/gurgling*..."

Or I could just commit myself to the local mental institute and save the psychoanalysts and a concerned community the trouble.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

I just got in an argument of sorts (argument=me getting hot-headed, other party looking at me like I'm bonkers) with my roommate... Clearly I'm not going to be this servant of God I keep dreaming about... not if I can't help but get into a contentious verbal tussle with anyone who pushes my buttons or contests my opinions. Now I'm surfing the ocean tide of remorse and emotional toxicity that washes in whenever I manage to get out of line... At times spiritual clarity is a curse, if only because it hones the edge of reason and regret.

Friday, February 25, 2005

So what can I say about Constantine, except wow, wow, and wow? "But it's special effects detritus," you say. "It stinks of convenient deus ex machina moments and other assorted plot devices," you protest. And I say, au contraire, my little cherubs. That's right. Considering my doubts about the movie just on the cusp of buying a ticket, I could have fried the $5 and served it w/ a nice Chianti. Maybe not having been to the movies in a month, being over-stressed about not getting a job, or poring over some mind-wrenching film genre text just minutes before the movie all contributed to my overall wonderment at the pulse-pounding, rip-roaring, and smartly executed occult thriller. So many "occult" films tend to spill over into a rarified mix of one-liner misfires, overdone action sequences, and spectacular and widespread demonic creatures shoddily churned out of Hollywood's CGI machine. Somehow all of the rank-and-file of disappointments like "End of Days" and "Spawn" seems to fall gingerly in place in this film, sprinkled with sardonic grumblings from Reeves's Constantine, constantly cradling a cigarette.

I don't know whether I'm surprised at the film or myself for relishing it, even to the point of getting goosebumps when an ambiguous female angel Gabriel unfolds a pair of ashen wings or being dazzled by the dark host of fallen rogues hanging out at a sort of voodoo/Catholic priest's lounge. Sadly, I left before the rumored extra scene after the credits... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaarggh!

So anyway, if you're up for some fun w/ demons, this one gets my whole-hearted vote...

Thursday, February 24, 2005

I was cruising Wal-Mart today w/ really no money. There are perhaps few levels of humiliation more agonizing than to wander half-starving through America's consumerist bane longingly eyeing the cheese section, a swarming pool of eager saliva just on the cusp of my tongue.

I did so while waiting for my passenger side front tire to be put in... I'm a little misty-eyed at the removal of the faithful doughnut spare that kept my car moving (albeit under 45 mph) for the interim. We grew very close, lil' Roundie and I.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

So last night I was thinking just how terrified I am of apocalyptic terror, and based on the news of some $200 billion dollars spent on the continuing conflict in Iraq, thrown into a spicy soup of post-apocalyptic imagery (the most recent and notable being that of a charred Washington, D.C. on USA's "The Dead Zone"---thank you, late night television!) I realized in one of my overwhelming mental torrents at around 2 this morning... I really don't trust George "W." This understanding isn't as shocking as the numerous emotional (and sometimes comedic) arguments I had (around the same time) against political conservatives' war-mongering...

I get the impression that some "W" crusaders think in a peripheral way that the U.S's mucking around in the Middle East is some kind of holy war; that in fact we're saving the world by stirring the hornet's nest or dancing in a pit of cranky cobras. That's right. Cranky cobras!

While I subscribe to the LDS ethos of submission to governmental authority---(we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law) ---I don't believe that means exonerating/disregarding the obvious frailties and/or lack of "inspiration" in our secular leadership. Anyway, I can feel the level of bile surging inside me... I'd best let things lie until I can write a cogent (but scathing) letter to the President. :)

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Today I finished off a roll of "people" photos as per the assignment in my cinematography class, and again struck gold by finding an "ugly" industrial pocket of the Provo/Orem area. Last night, I went w/ someone kind enough (and available on short notice) to snap some shots along Center Street and fortuitously, in a gated area left open to the caprices of a novice photographer next to Provo Power. There were giant spools of electric cable, some aged wood and others pale aqua with rust-colored edges. Unusual, rugged, almost urban: a delightful backdrop for a fresh face, a fragile hand, brown eyes brightening boredom. So it was this morning that upon venturing just over the railroad tracks and down a stretch another kind helper and my camera chanced upon the mangled ruins of a semi-truck and several trailers stacked atop one another like some monumental post-apocalyptic relic. The scenery alone assured some very unique photography.It's fascinating just how the "ugly" of things man-made can still be made beautiful if cast in a sunny light, warmed by a smile, or made more intriguing by a probing pair of eyes.

I'll no doubt have to scan a few slides of the best shots, that is, w/ the permission of both occupants...

--------------------------------------------------------------- I am burning, I am brown, I am the very symbol of passion; my soul is full of yearnings for pleasure; you look for me? - It is not for you; no

- My brow is pale; my gold braids can offer endless delight; I guard a treasure of tenderness; you call for me? - No; it is not for you.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Perchance the hair-cutting experience is different for a dame. (That's right, I said dame because I'm feeling like Sinatra.) I've just found that it's just a hair's breadth---hehe---away from the agony of the dentist, sitting in that leather chair upholstered with metal buttons. It's more like a medieval instrument of torture than a hair styling implement. "Yes sir, would you like the draw and quarter or a shampoo today?"

Today, when I was buzzed Gomer Pyle instead of Brad Pitt, I felt more like a sheep than a sado-masochistic experiment gone horribly wrong. My problem? I can't decide which is more harrowing. There I sat, tufts of my salt and pepper locks whipping around me, forlornly parted from my crown and drifting down the slope of my slippery dark-olive smock, almost waving farewell. Meanwhile, I'm trying nervously to keep from catching my hairdo in an open eyeball and simultaneously maintaining my head in a planar rectitude so that I don't have a lopsided flat-top come the end of the shearing. Throughout these complex and subtle manuevers I'm finding myself hypnotized by the stylist's? (is barber PC anymore?) frantic pace so that come the end of the shearing I really don't recall what happened. In fact, the only signal I have that the nightmare is over is a mirror w/ a neon lavender handle being thrust in my hand. This is the portion of horror films where the audience either yells or whispers to themselves "Don't open that door! Don't go in the room! Don't take your clothes off!" Fortunately in this instance the haircut manages to mask the oblong thrust of my melon toward the back and also avoids the mushroom-cloud formation. Kudos! So I gave the lady a $2 tip. Yay.

Someday I'll have to share the story of my experience with the Von Curtis Academy and the student with a bloody eye. We'll call her One-eye Wanda. She runs a chicken joint and a voodoo lounge.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

I went today to pay the now notorious speeding ticket and was presented w/ the option of traffic school. Despite costing $3 more the promise of having the ticket kept off my record and the lure of a potentially lower insurance rate (at least that's the vague whisper circling in my mental vortex) prompted me to wade through a brief encounter w/ local bureaucracy to make it happen.

I ended up on the 3rd floor of the 4th judicial district courthouse next to a strange blend of "perps": I remember a guy clad very casually in what seemed to be an aqua jogging suit, though it may have just been that the overwhelmingly gaudy color made me think it was a full-body ensemble. An elderly couple sat cheerfully speaking with a tan, young-looking smile and a haircut, who, when he was next on the list for the hot seat, sprang up from his seat and bounded to Room 307 like he was in a pasture full of sunflowers.

Sitting there contemplating the pasty blue paint, the sullen looks of another traffic violator next to me, and unable to entertain myself by eavesdropping on a conversation between a very pregnant woman and her "ex-representation" (who seemed to have forgotten her name), I took the elevator down and went home to get my sole textbook for my film genres class.

After I returned, I noticed a few others had joined in the line (each has to sign up on a clipboard and then be called in) who better matched the seedy surroundings of relatively small-town vice. A muddy blonde miscreant w/ blood shot eyes was directing traffic: he smirkingly tried to show an uppity fellow ---himself quite out of place in an olive dress shirt, tie, and dapper overcoat--- to the clipboard.

On a side note, I was struck by the sinister scent of cigarettes in the elevator. Keenly aware of (and relieved by) Utah's Clean Air act, I'm certain that the parade of smokers entering any public domain cemented their stink into the floor carpeting, the faux wood finish, and the electronic paneling so that others will know the same corruption... LOL. I speak of cigarette stink as if it's a contagion, and I suppose it is.

At any rate, cinematography was relatively uneventful, except that I was enthralled by the various glimmers of talent in the room. Some of the photos were just plain stellar.